Self love is not the answer to low self esteem

@Tinywhisper11 Yeah I can see how this is a bit confusing. She talks about some prominent psychologists and their theories and how those theories may have some unhelpful ideas. I think that in general her criticism of these other psychologists is that they don’t recognize that we create some of our suffering by defending ourselves. Defending ourselves makes sense but we do it in unhealthy ways.

Here is my summary of what she is saying. We have an “inner critic” voice in our head. That voice says really harsh things about us. We may conclude that because the voice is saying harsh things means that we don’t love ourselves. In fact, we feel terrible when that voice is berating us. The fact that we feel terrible is proof that we care about ourselves. If we didn’t care about ourselves we would be ok with the harsh voice. The solution is to notice when that inner critic starts berating us and decide we aren’t going to pay attention to it. (What she doesn’t mention is that this process of noticing and responding to our inner voice takes practice).

She goes on to describe self destructive behaviors like drinking too much. She says that we are just trying to escape painful feelings through these behaviors. It doesn’t mean we don’t love ourselves, it just means we are not making the best choices to deal with our feelings.

What she said made sense to me but I think maybe she didn’t do the best job of explaining it in the video. I like the messages I have seen so far on their website.

Below is her summary of her article.  

So, the next time your inner critic is coming in loud and clear, consider that this doesn’t actually mean that you hate yourself. Just because you think something doesn’t mean you’re down with it, and your emotional response to those thoughts tells you all you need to know about how down with them you are. As for self-destructive behaviours, you can think of them as well-meaning but misguided. They’re the things we do to get immediate relief from hard feelings, but they also cause other problems that make them questionable options. One simple strategy to deal with the negative self-talk is to notice it when it’s happening, name it, like “Oh, there’s my inner critic again”, and respond to it, like, “It’s not helpful to think of myself like that”. Then, when it comes to changing self-destructive behaviours, notice your urge to do something regrettable, take a moment to pause, take a breath, and remind yourself that that doesn’t actually help and you don’t need more things to feel *** about. Then do something that’s more likely to address the feeling you’re having better, like opening up to a supportive person in your life, writing in your journal, or going for a run.